Officials of Amnesty international (file)
Officials of Amnesty international (file)Reuters

Amnesty International has condemned Jordan for executing Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists in "revenge" for the group burning Jordanian pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh alive on camera. 

“The Jordanian authorities are rightly horrified by this utterly reprehensible killing but the response should never be to resort to the death penalty, which itself is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment," Philip Luther, director of AI's Middle East and North Africa Program, stated Wednesday. 

"The death penalty should also not be used as a tool for revenge. The ISIS’s gruesome tactics must not be allowed to fuel a bloody cycle of reprisal executions.”

Would-be Iraqi female suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi and Iraqi Al-Qaeda member Ziad al-Karboli were executed at 4:00 a.m. local time, government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani told AFP earlier Wednesday. 

Rishawi, 44, was sentenced to death for her participation in triple hotel bombings in Amman in 2005 that killed 60 people; she was closely linked to ISIS's predecessor organization in Iraq and seen as an important symbol for the jihadists.  

ISIS had offered to spare Kassasbeh's life and free Japanese journalist Kenji Goto in exchange for Rishawi's release; Goto was later beheaded before any such transaction was negotiated.

Karboli was sentenced to death in 2007 on terrorism charges, including the killing of a Jordanian in Iraq.